P2P

63 I L T A N E T . O R G • Do I know how to reach out to them without a work email address, and would they want me to? • Are they making a conscious effort to transform their work network to a social network, so the important relationships could continue? • Will my retirement and knowledge sharing roadmap help answer these questions? I began to formulate the roadmap for knowledge sharing within my organization. At the same time, I thought about helping other individuals and organizations focus on importance of "people" continuity and knowledge sharing in the lead up to key people retiring or leaving. As we usually find when we start to dissect and plan for a particular event, the initial idealism and "easy road" often hits a few potholes along the way. Such was the case here. I realized that these are potholes we all face and more importantly, raise questions that all organizations should think through to remain efficient. Reality Check: Boomers Retiring And Loss First, I thought about the skills, knowledge, experience, and relationships that will walk out the door with me when I go. I did a bit of research and found out that as a Baby Boomer, I am a part of a bigger problem. Boomers consider themselves knowledgeable compared to younger staff, as do I – we KNOW stuff! However, we are also likely to say we have not shared all or even a reasonable percentage of the knowledge needed by our successors to perform our jobs once we have retired. The majority of Boomers become eligible to retire within the next several years, so there is a considerable risk that organizations may suffer in production, performance, and efficiency due to knowledge loss. That's a problem for everyone, especially in an industry as specialized as legaltech and as full of Boomer leaders. I took from that, that I needed to figure out how to share the important stuff at least, before I go! Knowledge transfer takes time and effort, so I figured I shouldn't wait until a month before I retire to start the process. I began with documents, categorizing what I have, with an image that it ALL should be available and accessible to all. The image grew until it looked something like this: That image was both unhelpful and a bit unrealistic as the basis of a knowledge sharing system. I realized I would have to revise my thinking about what was critical to share. I decided to aim for something a bit more like this:

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